...Life is not so black and white for some....
I first met Alison on Christmas eve in 2014. I'm guessing she was about ten years old at the time.
Alison is a street person, Black and she has the vitilago condition:
with patches of discoloured skin on her face, and probably other parts of her body.
She was sitting in a doorway next to a McDonald's close to Queen Street East and Church Street in Toronto. I gave her $10 and told her that I couldn't offer her a place to sleep, because that would be inappropriate.
I saw Alison several times in 2017. By this point, she was a crack addict. I'd usually give her little things if I saw her, like a chocolate bar, a lighter or a couple of cigarettes. Normally I'd never offer tobacco to a child, but when the alternative is her trying to smoke sidewalk buts, it's the lesser of two evils. One time a saw a children's aid worker attempting to get her to agree to come to a shelter, and she refused. You can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped.
I saw her again on Saturday morning. I recognized her from the vitilago spots. She was walking on the sidewalk with some old Boomer. Something told me that charity was not his only motive.
She'd be about twenty years old now, but her face looked 60. I'm guessing her height and weight would be about four foot nine, and under 70 pounds. If there is a Christian heaven, this is someone who should get waived through 'customs', because she's already survived at least ten years of hell on Earth.